Strengths & Talents: The Facts

By Dries Lombaard
Director:  Strategic Engagement; Strengths Institute

We often come across people that are very misinformed about the Strengths Movement. When they have some kind of platform, they then (sometimes intentionally) spread dis-information about some core principles within the Strengths Based approach.

Here are some statements you might encounter - and our reaction to it:

A Strengths Based approach is a "feel good", lazy approach that gives people the excuse to sidestep hard work. This causes leaders to stagnate.
Not true. Nowhere will you find anyone within the Strengths Movement, be it Gallup, Marcus Buckingham etc, who will deny the importance of hard work for success. In fact, we often quote the research done by Malcolm Gladwell in his book "Outliers", where he states that successful people put in an average of 10'000 hours of hard work in order to obtain success or fame. Any true leader will understand this to be true.
As soon as someone discovered their talent themes, the need to shift their energy and hard work towards that area in order to be successful. The problem is that hard work which is directed towards your weaknesses simply prevent failure, but wont lead to sustainable success. In order to be sustainably successful and fulfilled and have energy and passion to continue, you need to focus your hard work daily towards who you are - that is, towards your talents.

When you focus on your strengths, you stop learning.
Absurd statement. A true learner will never stop being a student, and someone who just does not study and learn, will find it very hard to start. The truth is that the more you discover about strengths - especially your own, the more you learn. It daily opens new and exciting angles within your work and life and your unique contribution towards it. And, because of the dynamics between strengths, you cannot simply approach it as a flare that you shoot up. The challenge lies within learning and applying it every day. When you focus on your talents and are serious to turn them into strengths, you START learning.

Good leaders has strengths and no apparent weaknesses.
Oh boy, how inaccurate this is! Just a non-leader will ever believe that a leader has no weaknesses. A true leader are very aware of his or her weaknesses, but does not let it pull them down. They do not waste energy on it, bu manage it well. They delegate wisely, outsource economically, borrow from others' strengths and know how to fill their gaps. They also know that they need to work very hard in order to keep their talents at a strength level.

Spending too much time on your strengths, turns it into a weakness. Any strength that is overused becomes a weakness.
You cannot spend too much time on your strengths - just as you cannot spend too much time being you. Also, strengths development has everything to do with how and where you use it. In the strengths movement we have a saying: "A well managed talent becomes a strength - but a mismanaged talent becomes a detriment." It's about how you manage your talent themes that turns it into strengths. Without this, talent will only stay mere potential. It is not an overused strength that becomes a weakness, it is a mismanaged one, mostly because of projection or judging.

Your strengths must be ignored if it is not what is needed by your organization or employee.
Everyone understands that you cannot operate or function within the zone of your strengths 100% of the time. Nobody claims that not to be true. But successful people create an environment over time where they get to function within their talent zone MOST of the time. Obviously you sometimes need to bite the bullet and just grind ahead with the task at hand. But if you do that most of the time - or worse, all of the time - you can be assured of you and your employee to be on the losing side over the long haul. Remember that a weakness is not something you do badly, just as a strength is not something you do well. Those are skills. A strength is something that energize you, and a weakness is something that weakens you. And being energized most of the time is the target to aim for!

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